and not giving us a lecture, but engaging us in a conversation and speaking the truth and telling us how to learn at this place that i carried with me ever since. now how did this one man do all this? how's he accomplished all this? he hadn't done it simply by his good lucks and easy charm. although he has both in ample measure. he hadn't done it simply because of the excellence of his scholarship, although his scholarship has opened up new vistas and new horizons and changed the standards of what legal writing is about. >> president barack obama, back in 1991 as barack obama citizen activist. he's a graduate of harvard law school and served as the editor

of harvard law review in the 1980s and returned harvard in 1991 to protest hiring practices by harvard university. if you want to read more go to wgbh in boston or online at the hill.com. we're back at 7:00 a.m. eastern time and we'll continue our conversation here on c-span radio. 4:00 for those of you on the west coast. thanks for being with us on this wednesday. enjoy the rest of your evening.

fema director craig fugate

testifies about the president's 201 budget request of $10 billion for his agency, a 6% cut from this year. members also hear about local and state emergency agencies. this is two and a half hours. >> good morning. today we welcome the administrator of the federal emergency management agency, fema, craig fugate, to discuss his agencies budget request for fy 13. after the conclusion of the discussion with mr fugate, we'll convene an additional panel of speak holder organizations. stakeholder organizations. i'll make a brief opening statement and to allow time for members to ask questions and

proceed with our second panel as well. administrator fugate, first of all, thank you for the work that you do and the hundreds of fema personnel that were deployed in my home state of alabama last april and beyond. and after the devastating tornados that impacted us. they are still this helping our communities pick up the pieces today and we very much appreciate all the work that fema and your agency has done. as recently as this past weekend, we saw devastation that was wrought by severe weather and we look to fema to assist our state and local responders as it is needed we thank you folks on the ground for all your hard work. before we begin i'll touch briefly on several issues which we'll discuss at length later. with respect to disaster funding, we want to know will the disaster relief fund be solvent through the remainder of this year and the next, and will fema complete all recovery projects for disasters that

happened last year before fy 13? grant reform -- how will it work and how will fema allocate funding under the new framework. will you provide funding to high transit areas and ports as you have in the past or provided solely to states for distribution. and furthermore, if allocations are dependent on a state's threat and risk assessment, will you provide guidance on the process you announced over a year ago? these questions and others must be answered as your proposal is considered. and as you continue to engage congress on the matter i strongly encourage you to reach out to the state and the local stakeholders that will be impacted by these proposed changes. mr. fugate, these are issues which you're very familiar. you've seen these issues from the local state and now, federal level. i look forward to your thoughts and on these issues and problems and what progress you have made in the last year. as well as the challenges that

remain. as your written testimony will be placed in the record, i would ask to take five minutes or so and summarize it for the committee. but before i begin that i would like to call upon the ranking member, mr. price, for his opening comments. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome. the work you do is critical to help our country prepare for, mitigate against and recover from disasters. we had 99 major disasters. that's a hefty job and one you performed admirably. when you arrive they were in rebuild mode trying to get back the lost confidence of the american people. your leadership has brought us full circle. the contrast between the universal acclaim fema got after hurricane irene and the heartbreaking image of the

people left stranded in hurricane katrina could not be more striking. this confirms that the loss we followed after katrina has been rebuilt and i commend you for these efforts. at the same time, fema was spread thinly responding to a record number of spring disasters and your agency is and was facing significant financial challenges. your chief financial officer should be complimented for keeping you out of the black for the end of fiscal 2011. as we both know, this was touch-and-go, right up until the end. hopefully with the new mechanism congress passed as part of the budget control act we'll have more long-term stability to fund critical disaster relief needs. principally we're here to discuss your 2013 budget. the request for fema is $10.2 billion and 6.2 is for the

disaster relief fund, 5% less than 2012, reflecting a $1 billion reduction. i'm pleased to note significant increases for grantses albeit in the last two years. the funding is tide to a significant reorganization of the state and local grant program. your new national preparedness gant proposal has raced many questions as to how it work, how you will award funds to maintain core capabilities nagwide, while also bolstering the security investments to buy down risk. and who may be left out. today, i hope you'll be able to provide more clarity on how you envision this grant to work if approv approved. also worries me that you substantial i will reduce

requests for food and housing when they remain on shaky footing. they lowball the funding for all of the flooding and we know that's the most frequent and costly natural hazard in the united states. and it eliminates funding for predisaster mitigation efforts, even when this program continues to receive far more requests for funding and meritorious request that'seen appropriated so i hope we can work together to address these problems as we develop our 2013 funding recommendations administrative fugate, thank you for being here. i look forward to a frank discussion here today. >> thank you, mr. price. mr. fugate, we look forward to your comments and thank you for being here. >> well, thank you, mr. chairman

and ranking member price, members. first, this year i think this is the fourth time i've presented the budget for fema and based bob the work done and the budget stabilization act we're requesting the funding for the drf based upon what we estimate our total costs will be, including the previous catastrophic disasters as well as the activity we'll expect in fy 13. the overall budget request again, is a reduction. part of that is reflected in what we have looked at is to reduce cost of the fy 13 response. that is isn't may of the costs spended in the last year expended for tornados and at large scale dalss will be paid out this year and therefore, there will be further reductions based upon the long-term building. so we're pro-rating this baited on what we consider the work to

be in opening disasters as well as factoring in the cost for the responses we expect. the caveat is in future catastrophic disasters there may be requirements for additional funds. this is based on the known universe of disasters as well as the expected recurring workload we see in a typical year. those are rather significant milestones in that area. the other part of our budget does shows reductions including reductions in our base budget which is reflected more in the efficiencies that we've been striving to achieve. we had to make decisions about programs to reduce or eliminate. we took an approach that said rather than taking percentage cuts across all programs we'd look at those programs that would be eliminated entirely or significantly reduced while keeping other programs funded to accomplish their mission. this will result in some people

saying their programs got cut. but in predisaster mitigation which we recommended not to fund, we have a backlog of $174 million in opened projects. that doesn't count the dollars that are out there on the disaster in section 404 which is also a significant investment in mitigation. so it was not a easy choice to make but in looking at the areas that we felt we had the need to make reductions, given that much of the activities are still moving forward on that backlog, as well the other dollars, we made that recommendation. as far as the consolidation of grants, mr. chairman, i won't spend a lot of time here because i know we want to do this as q & a. we're looking at more flexibility. i think we're trying to move a program that oftentimes was put

into various identified areas of funding that didn't always necessarily coordinate well or look at what was the needs as a nation. and the president's issued some presidential decision directive of national preparedness and establishing a goal. we're looking at -- how do you fund, not just jurisdiction by jurisdiction and the threats they face -- but how do we build capability to serve the nation? how do we build capability that's a shared responsibility of all levels of government to respond to catastrophic incidents. we saw examples this year and last year. much of that response was contributed to by previous investments in homeland security that meant that teams were available closer to their neighbors that could respond to their mutual aid. urban search and rescue teams, communication vehicles, instant management teams, that previously had to come from the federal government and further away, speeding up the response

and freeing up more responses for another disaster. so we do this on based on urban security areas and we recognize that. but how was that contribute to national capability? because we can look at various scenarios that would even overwhelm the best prepared state or city. where is that help coming from? are we making investment strategies targeted towards national preparedness goals and those areas that are capabilities as we see as necessary to be in the position to prevent or in the event something happens rapidly stabilize that event. so by combining the grants and putting more emphasis on the outcomes and using threat-based and hazard-base recommendations to look at what capabilities we have and where gaps occur and the best strategy to fund that. it doesn't lend itself to each

jurisdiction trying to determine it. we need to look at this more collectively and go, how do we build that among our shared resources and utilize the tools that state governments already have and may jurisdictions participate in which is the emergency management response between state to state and in-state mutual aid. i think this starts the dialogue of how we build against a national picture versus jurisdiction by jurisdiction. and in doing that, by consolidating the grants and putting more emphasis on the outcomes and measures to support those investment strajs that would be more directed by a national preparedness goal. with that i'll stop. i know we have a lot of questions and i want to make sure we have the time as you requested. >> thank you. i'll start out and talk about the disaster relief fund. your fy 13 budget includes $6.1

billion for disasters including over $3 billion for the cost of disasters that have already occurred such as the tornado that struck my home state of alabama this past april. i was thinking back a few minutes ago, little did we know a year ago when you were before this subcommittee and given your presentation, that we would be in store for such a difficult year, especially for many members on this subcommittee but members overall and the devastation that would occur. i didn't know quite -- i didn't see you quite at much after that hearing but we saw each other a good bit and talked on the phone many times. before we turn to the fy 13, are you sufficiently funded for fy 12 to complete the year without implementing funding restrictions that limit funding to immediate needs? >> from what we now and the caveat is future disasters.

based on our planned recoveries of $1.2 billion and what we estimate will be expended in previous disasters, we're still projecting to end the fiscal year on september 30th, at approximately $200 million. now, again, means we have to still continue to be aggressive in recoveries and close out older disasters. what i got here in 2009 was something that was impressed upon me that we had a lot of opened disasters and we were not closing them out. since i've been here we did about $4.7 billion in recoveries from opened disasters. we are projecting our budget at $1.2 billion in recoveries this year from all the dalss. if we can find more we'll do that. the other thing we're doing is driving down the cost of response. in many cases we're finding that by using such techniques as not establishing physical presence and using virtual presence we're driving down the cost of the administration of the disaster and all of these are pressures

on the grant itself. so we look at and are holding ourselves accountable not only in the recoveries but reducing the costs of administering the disasters and finding ways to perform the same level of performance with our state and local partners without the overhead that we may have incurred previously. also included in the budget justification for fy 13 is an estimate for anticipated cost in outyears for catastrophic events which allows you to anticipate no additional cost for any of the fy 11 disasters and beyond, end of fy 13. is that correct? >> yes, sir. >> will fema have fully funded the stafford act recovery efforts in alabama and missouri due to tornados and in the midwest due to flooding and the northeast dooufr due to hurricane irene by the end of fy 13? >> i would say, sir, we'll work toward that. based upon my experience in writing project worksheets.

as soon as we have the projects and we're obligated. that's the milestone. we have obligated the funds and the project is defined. where we may not make that mark is if we have issues about insurance and having to reconcile thato a environment of reviews which may take time to get projects moving. we look at the obligations occurring when we sign off in the state asubgrantees sign off. that doesn't men the work was done but the funds have been obligated. some of the more technical and complex, we may not be completely written because we're still working. we have the appeals process when we disagree. so not knowing what may be appealed, our goal is to get these projects written as quickly as we can to begin the work. i would say that we would have the bulk of them done but experience tells me there may be projects either because of the technicality or because we're in disagreement, maybe appeals may not be written but our goal is

to get these funds obligated so work can start back. >> i put an emphasis on speed. i feel the quicker we get construction back the better the communities are. it really reduces the overall cost to the community. but sometimes, there are those outliers which take longer to get done. >> moving on to debris removal cost. as you know, part of cost of responding to disasters is the cost of cleaning up debris. fema provides two methods of cleanup. communities can select the corps of engineers or a contractor or a local that are the can bid out to local and regional contractors. recently there's been a talk about use core when compared to other options. we had a report that requires fema in conjunction with the

corps of engineers to explain the disparity in the cost factors in the core and the private option communities have for debris removal. i wanted to see what the status of the report is. >> it's in process. i'll tell you my personal observations. when we have jurisdictions that have the capability to the debris, they have their contracts and if they follow the steps required, it is generally faster and lower cost. where the corps provides a significant advantage is in those communities that don't have the capability, haven't had the contracts or the event is bigger than their capabilitys so provide management and bring in resources across the nation. so i think you'll see in many cases we would support local jurisdictions that have the capability of management debris because it's more cost effective. we get local hires and we put money back in the economy. it's faster. there will be those event where the corps still provides a service. one that exceeds that capability or one that was not in place

prior to the disaster. >> my time has expired. mr. price? >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me lay out a few questions that i hope in the course of walking us through this you can address. a feature of your budget is the streamlining of the 16 separate preparedness grant programs and the single newly titled national preparedness grant program, this excludes the emergency management performance are grants and firefighters grants but not much else. you have 16 programs consolidated here. and you lay down a couple of criteria which will govern your grant-making. one is the utilization of a competitive-risk based model to make these decision and also, requiring grantees to develop and sustain core capabilities

and those criteria on the face of it raise certain issues because you're consolidating programs here that that have had somewhat different rationales and different criteria for funding decisions. the two largest are the state homeland security security program and the urban area security initiative. these are two very different programs. one is intended to build corp capacity across the country. the other is intended to protect the most at-risk areas of the country. i wonder if you could indicate up front, your estimate of how much money will go toward those two basic programs. and then, how are some of the current guidelines likely to apply when you're providing -- you're going to still provide as the 9/11 act requires, you'll still provide a minimal level of funding to each state. are you going to follow the current guidelines? how's that going to work? after you allocated the funds

for the minimums, what is your next priority? i assume it's improving capabilities in high-risk areas. but how do these objectives co-exist? and when we look at other programs, how are you going to graft on to this, the use of a competitive risk-based model that has applied to programs like the transit and port grants. for example, how would fema compare a port project to a transit project in a major urban area? what criteria would we use to evaluate across these areas which previously would have been considered separately with a very targeted purpose. >> probably the shortest answer is to caveatare more questions details i could cover in the time allotted. >> but at the same time, we have

a process under way this year, you can perhaps answer on the basis to the extent that which that pattern would continue. >> let's talk with the urban security area and state homeland security grants. other than how they're being identified and designated the activities aren't different as to what's eligible. and again, what we found was in looking at requests in consolidated we're not looking to say we're not going to fund urban security areas but in funding urban security areas and state homeland security are we getting the synergy of the investments matching up to what the overall needs are? and also recognizing that in these 16 areas of these different funds which we're putting into one grant with the eligibility, when we look at it jurisdiction by jurisdiction, program by program, what are the overlaps? if you break it down, what are the things you're doing.

people like to start with money and i say what are we doing with it? are we building urban search and rescue teams? enhancing bomb squads? building fusion centers and maintaining those? you'll find this moun is coming back into a lot of these areas from different pots of money to achieve that. we asked, would it make more sense to put the grant together with those criteria and then administer that as a single grant versus what we find local and states take different pots of money to build capability because they can take money from here and here. so as we started the prosets it came back to -- we were looking jurisdiction by jurisdiction. literally, a transit grant, a port grant and urban security area, a state, metropolitan metro response team and citizen core grant. and if we're looking at national preparedness and we identify gaps how do we get the fund to address those if we're so bifurcated and how we're identifying how the money is

spent in different programs which oftentimes, local jurisdictions and state jurisdictions are hopefully working together already to address these issues. so as we look at fy 12, we're still funding the state homeland security grants, the urban security grabts and doing competitive grants for transit and port which is being addressed with our partners with coast guard and tsa for authorizetion. and we identify in the grant wear, the priorities for those things as a national priority but not necessarily put them into separate pots of money or identify separate funding streams and give more flexibility to the states and partners to address how they would fund that within those jurisdictions. >> thank you. i'll pick this up on the next round. >> we'll now recognize the chairman of the full committee,

mr. rogers. >> i got it on now. >> can you hear me okay? >> yes, sir. >> mr. chairman, thank you for giving me this time. i apologize for being late i had another testimony to give on another committee. i wanted to be here to plead for a firm commitment from administrator to help my district and state and even our most recent and terrifying days last weekend. as you well know, kentucky was devastated by very crippling storms last weekend. hurricane-force winds, flooding, multiple tornadoes. including one which left a 90-mile trail of destruction in

kentucky and into west virginia. really rare for the hills and mountains to have a tornado certainly this time of year. they have left many communities in my region completely ravaged. the towns of west liberty and east bernstead have been destroyed. every building destroyed. lawrence county, morgan, and other counties still counting damages. not all in my district but other districts hit also. massive loss of life and injury. some families have lost everything. cars, homes, possessions, pictures, family bible, you name it, gone. and then on top of it, a two inch snow on what remained. my people are really hurting. and as you can see from the